PlanetSKI’s Banff Resort Guide

ninth October 2024 | Ross Younger, Banff, Alberta

Banff is a ski city in Alberta, Canada with three resorts on its doorstep. We use the phrase ‘doorstep’ within the Canadian sense of the phrase. PlanetSKI’s Ross Younger studies. NEW

It’s an extended approach to Banff, however the journey to the resort may hardly be extra easy.

After the nine-and-a-half hour flight from London to Calgary, you hop on the bus proper exterior the terminal for the 85-mile switch to the resort.

Two hours later, the bus drops you proper at your resort.

When you’ve settled in, you’ll discover that Banff has every thing you’ll must hold you content for so long as you’re there.

Set towards a shocking backdrop – Banff lies on the southern finish of Banff Nationwide Park, a protected expanse of greater than 2,500 sq. miles of the Canadian Rockies – the city boasts a thriving (if not fairly five-star) restaurant scene, a stack of excellent bars and loads of buying alternatives, all in an space sufficiently small to stroll throughout in little over 1 / 4 of an hour.

Banff, Alberta. Picture © PlanetSKI.

However whereas superb eating and retail remedy are helpful extras, the snowboarding is what actually issues.

And that’s the place Banff actually delivers.

While you vacation in Banff, your SkiBig3 carry cross permits you to select every day between (you guessed it) three separate ski hills:

Sunshine VillageLake LouiseMt Norquay

Every is accessed by timetabled buses with stops throughout city, so that you’re assured to be picked up from close to your resort.

Sunshine (15-minutes) and Lake Louise (45-minutes) are a manner away, however in Canadian phrases the journey is nothing on this huge nation.

SUNSHINE VILLAGE

If Sunshine was all you needed to ski for per week, you’d nonetheless go residence completely happy.

Only a 15-minute drive from Banff city, its 137 runs provide one thing for everybody, from cruisey groomed slopes to a few of North America’s gnarliest freeride runs.

On piste, Sunshine claims that the snow you’ll be travelling over is nearly as good as you’ll discover wherever on the earth.

Head to the higher reaches of the ski space and also you’ll discover out why that’s.

Excessive above the tree line, row upon row of fencing captures drifting pure snow in an uncommon farming operation.

Sunshine Village. Picture © PlanetSKI

With as much as 9 metres (30 ft) of the fluffy stuff falling every season and a military of snow ploughs to maneuver it round, Sunshine has no want for industrial-scale snowmaking: there’s sufficient of the true deal to maintain its pistes nicely coated all through the season.

Sunshine Village. Picture © PlanetSKI

LAKE LOUISE

The second of Banff’s ski areas, Lake Louise, is a bit farther from city.

The 38-mile journey takes a bit over three quarters of an hour.

Like Sunshine, Lake Louise covers three areas (the West Bowl, Entrance Aspect and Larch) nevertheless it’s even larger, encompassing 4,200 acres of skiable terrain throughout greater than 2,600 metres of elevation.

Lake Louise, Picture © PlanetSKI

Once more, there’s one thing for everybody right here: the West Bowl specifically is a paradise for backcountry skiers, however there’s greater than sufficient in the way in which of pleasant groomers to maintain newbies and intermediates completely happy too.

Higher nonetheless, Lake Louise’s piste structure makes a degree of catering for teams of combined skills, so there’s a selection of simple, intermediate or skilled runs from the highest of each chairlift.

Lake Louise, Picture © PlanetSKI

Lake Louise can be one of many friendliest resorts I’ve had the pleasure of snowboarding at.

Stand for greater than a few minutes in entrance of the enormous piste map on the prime the principle Glacier Specific chair carry and also you’ll seemingly end up engaged in dialog by a resort consultant who’ll advocate just a few runs to you based mostly in your capability and the situations.

It’s a stunning contact that made me really feel proper at residence.

Lake Louise, Picture © PlanetSKI

NORQUAY

Banff and Sunshine will likely be acquainted names to anyone with greater than a passing curiosity in snowboarding.

However Mt Norquay, the third SkiBig3 hill, is one thing of a well-kept secret.

Simply seven minutes’ drive from the centre of Banff, Norquay’s important stastistics – 60 runs packed into 190 acres of terrain served by a grand complete of six lifts – aren’t significantly spectacular at first look.

However dimension isn’t every thing, and there’s loads to like about Norquay.

Mt Norquay, Banff. Image c/o Ross Young.

Mt Norquay, Banff. Picture c/o Ross Younger.

For starters, it’s quiet.

You’re by no means going to must queue for lengthy at Sunshine or Lake Louise, however at instances at Norquay it feels such as you’re sharing the complete hill with only a handful of different individuals.

It’s steep, too.

If Norquay’s most precipitous runs, accessed by way of the Mystic and North American chairlifts, don’t set your pulse racing, nothing will.

They’re additionally why the mountain is treasured by locals: these within the know head to Norquay every time there’s large dump of snow as a result of they know that that is the place to seek out secure, steep powder that the majority guests, seduced as they’re by the dimensions and repute of Sunshine and Lake Louise, will overlook.

Throw in that Norquay has the one evening snowboarding out there in Banff , together with a terrain park, and that the homespun delights of the Lone Pine pub lie in wait between the underside of the slopes and cease for the bus again to city, and spending at the least a day there makes lots of sense.

So does planning per week’s snowboarding in Banff.